House, Senate agree on watered-down textbook bill

Florida school districts won’t have to select their own textbooks next year.

Lawmakers had proposed shifting the responsibility from the state Department of Education to local school boards — an idea that came into being after Volusia County parents complained about a textbook they considered pro-Islamic.

But school boards opposed the idea.

"It was going to be extremely expensive and extremely time consuming," said Wayne Blanton, the executive director of the Florida School Boards Association. "And there were no extra dollars in the plan."